Is It Worth the Watch?

Sometimes while watching an older film you’ve never heard of, like 1932’s drama Hell’s House, you don’t expect a lot, but then you’re wowed by an incredibly well-made and riveting film.

Although a young Bette Davis and Pat O’Brien, both very early in their careers, are top billed, the real star is Junior Durkin as an orphaned boy sent to live with his Aunt Em and Uncle Henry (just like in The Wizard of Oz. Also like that film, Uncle Henry is played by Charley Grapewin). When he refuses to rat out a bootlegger played by O’Brien, he is sent to a Dickensian reform school filled with dangerous situations and forced hard labor, where he eventually ends up in solitary confinement. The film quickly becomes an expose on the horrors of these institutions and a reporter’s race to save his life.

A little creaky in that early sound film kind of way, it’s still a crackling melodrama, and the pre-code elements are front and center, including a surprisingly homoerotic relationship between the star and another boy played by Junior Coghlan (Yes, there are two actors in this movie named Junior.)

Is It Worth The Watch? At times romantic, and at times horrifying, but it’s always intriguing. It’s a movie I didn’t expect much from and ended up loving. And because it’s pre-code it has some surprisingly honest and mature moments that may take you off guard.

1932

72 minutes

Starring – Junior Dunkin, Bette Davis, Pat O’Brien, Frank Coghlan Jr., Hooper Atchley, Morgan Wallace, Emma Dunn, Charley Grapewin

Director – Howard Higgin

Screenplay – Paul Gangelin, B. Harrison Orko